WILD RIDE THIS WEEK AROUND THE WORLD

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Hurricane Norbert nears Mexico's Baja California By KIRSTEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer OCT 11,08

PUERTO SAN CARLOS, Mexico - Fishermen pulled in their boats and hotels warned tourists away from beaches Friday as Category 2 Hurricane Norbert bore down on Mexico's southern Baja California peninsula. Norbert, with winds of near 105 mph, was expected to hit land early Saturday along a relatively unpopulated stretch north of the resort of Cabo San Lucas.Paula Lucero Aviles set out with six children and four other adults in a small fishing boat Friday when they got a cell phone call warning them to return to the port of San Carlos, where the skies had already turned dark with the hurricane's approach.We turned back because they warned us bad weather was coming, Aviles said. We would have been risking our lives. It is coming on strong.A hurricane warning was issued for the west coast of Baja California from Puerto San Andresito to Agua Blanca. Forecasters said Norbert would weaken somewhat before hitting land.But the government issued hurricane warnings along the coast of the northwestern border state of Sonora and on the east coast of the Baja peninsula from near La Paz north to Loreto.Norbert is expected to sweep across Baja on Saturday, cross the Gulf of California and then head toward the Mexican mainland.

The storm's remnants were expected to dump more rain on water-logged West Texas, where authorities were preparing for more flooding.State and local officials plan to activate an emergency operations center Monday in Presidio, where an earthen levee is struggling to hold back the swollen Rio Grande.The Governor of Baja California Sur state, Narciso Agundez, said officials here are very worried.It is certain that it will hit land tomorrow in Baja California Sur, one of two states that make up the peninsula, Agundez said.Under overcast skies, fishermen hauled their boats onto beaches in La Paz, a port town on the peninsula's eastern coast. Yellow flags on beaches warned people to stay out of the water.Eli and Claudia Tubia, on vacation from Texarkana, Texas, took a cruise Wednesday night despite the coming storm, but their hotel in resort-dotted Cabo San Lucas was already storing outdoor furniture and paintings.They kind of cleared out the beach, and the restaurants that they have on the beach, they took all the furnishings away, Eli Tubia said.Norbert was centered 210 miles west of Baja's southern tip late Friday and was moving north at 12mph, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.Meanwhile in southern Mexico, Tropical Storm Odile was approaching the resort of Acapulco, but was expected to remain offshore.The government extended a tropical storm warning from Lagunas de Chacahua westward past Acapulco and Zihuatanejo to Punta San Telmo, as Odile moved parallel to the Pacific coast with winds of about 60 mph.Odile was located about 75 miles southeast of Acapulco, and was moving northwest at about 13 mph. Odile could become a hurricane, and a small deviation in its path could bring the storm inland, the hurricane center said. Forecasters said Odile would sweep close to land on Saturday and could dump as much as 8 inches of rain, threatening dangerous mudslides. Odile has already caused flooding in Acapulco and forced officials to cancel classes at local schools. Civil defense officials in the southern state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, urged about 10,000 people living along river banks or other dangerous areas to evacuate. But Adrian Jaimes Celso, who lives in a vulnerable mountainside settlement in Acapulco, said residents don't know where any shelters are if we have to evacuate, or what provisions have been made.

As storm nears, west Texas braces for more floods By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 10, 6:54 PM ET

EL PASO, Texas - Officials planned to activate an emergency operations center in west Texas, where the remnants of Hurricane Norbert are expected to bring rain to already saturated areas, an official said Friday. The storm was expected to hit Mexico's western coast early Saturday with winds of at least 100 mph. The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the Presidio area Friday, saying that heavy rain in Mexico could cause flooding along the Rio Grande there and downriver in Lajitas.The reservoirs are full, so the water has to come out through Presidio, Presidio County Attorney Rod Ponton said.Additional rain in riverside Mexican towns could mean levee breaks in Texas, he said. Last month, heavy rains in Mexico caused Rio Grande to eclipse its banks, filling a nearly quarter-mile-wide channel between levees on each side of the border.Fearing a dam break, Mexican officials released flood waters into channels that feed the Rio Grande near Presidio and the Mexican town of Ojinaga.A levee break flooded hundreds of acres of farmland and swamped a golf course on the U.S. side east of Presidio, about 250 miles southeast of El Paso. Emergency crews built a makeshift dam along a railroad trestle to keep the flood from reaching town, but some farmland remained under water because the water table is now saturated, Ponton said.The highway that connects Presidio, Redford and Lajitas via the Big Bend Ranch State Park remained closed Friday after a flood last month washed away chunks of the road, Ponton said.The International Water and Boundary Commission, the two-nation agency responsible for maintaining border levees in Texas, has been monitoring them for weeks and plans to send more people to the area. But officials don't anticipate significant new flooding until the middle of next week, Ponton said.This isn't like standing around watching a wreck. This is like standing around, waiting for a wreck, he said. You know exactly where it's going to happen.(This version CORRECTS that the flood warning is for the Presidio area, not the El Paso area.)

British mother, teenage daughter drown in Spanish floods Fri Oct 10, 9:27 AM ET

MADRID (AFP) - A British woman and her 14-year-old daughter have drowned in a flash flood in eastern Spain which has been lashed by torrential rains, officials said on Friday. The pair had tried to cross a swollen stream on foot near the town of L'Olleria on Thursday after rising flood waters forced them to abandon the car they were travelling in with two other British citizens, a spokeswoman for the government representative in Valencia said.The flood waters reached between 12 and 16 inches but they did not correctly measure the force of the stream and they were swept away, the spokeswoman said. The other passengers in the car were not injured.The body of the 47-year-old woman and her daughter were only found at around midnight on Thursday, some four hours after they were swept away by the waters.

Israeli town hit by third day of Jewish-Arab clashes by David Furst
Fri Oct 10, 3:13 PM ET

ACRE, Israel (AFP) - Police clashed with Jewish protesters in Acre on Friday on the third day of violence between Arabs and Jews as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni travelled to the northern Israeli city to appeal for calm. Police fired a water cannon at a crowd of about 200 people as some demonstrators hurled bottles and stones at security forces.Chanting death to Arabs, the protesters were headed from a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood to the house of an Arab when police intervened.

The incident occurred hours after Livni, who is trying to form a new government and replace outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, issued in Acre what she said was a message of reconciliation and cooperation to calm tempers within the population.

Police deployed an additional 500 officers to help the 200-strong local force after violence broke out on Wednesday night as Jews observed Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement.We have also raised our level of alert throughout the country so that similar incidents do not occur again in Acre, or elsewhere, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.By Friday evening, Acre was quiet again.Calm was restored to the city in the evening, police commander Shimon Korn said on public television.Israeli President Shimon Peres had earlier appealed for calm.Jews and Arabs must stop immediately this violence which will not benefit anyone, he said in a statement.Two protesters and a police officer have been lightly wounded. Twelve people -- Arabs and Jews -- have been arrested since the first clashes broke out, Rosenfeld said.About 100 cars and 40 stores were damaged by Arab demonstrators, he said.

Rosenfeld said the initial unrest erupted when an Arab motorist drove into a neighbourhood where Arabs and Jews live, playing his car stereo loudly.A group of Jewish youths assaulted the driver, accusing him of deliberately making noise and disrupting the sanctity of Yom Kippur, when most Jews in Israel observe a religious ban on driving.Rumours then spread out, namely from mosques, claiming that the motorist had been killed, prompting several hundred Arabs to take to the streets, Rosenfeld said.Clashes started again on Thursday, when rioters from both sides hurled rocks at each other and the police used tear gas to disperse them, media reported.Football matches planned for the weekend were cancelled as was an annual theatre festival that was to be held next week and which usually draws thousands of visitors to the Mediterranean coastal city, media reported.Some MPs criticised the decision to call off the festival. It is an expression of coexistence in Acre, said Ophir Pinez-Paz, who heads the Knesset's Internal Affairs Committee. Speaking on army radio, he insisted the festival should be held despite the events or maybe because of them.On Thursday, ultra-nationalist MP Arieh Eldad denounced what he called Arab pogroms. One should not be surprised if Jews take up arms to defend themselves while the police do nothing to protect them, Eldad said. Arab MP Mohammed Barakeh blamed Jewish fascist gangs, which he said operate against the city's Arab population with complicity from the police.About one third of Acre's population of almost 50,000 are Arabs. The Haaretz daily meanwhile said several ambulances were pelted with stones to protest their operating on a holiday. An ailing 76-year-old told the daily about 50 Jewish religious students hurled stones from a bridge at the vehicle transporting him to a Haifa hospital.

Palestinians raid Hamas bomb factory in Hebron Fri Oct 10, 7:28 PM ET

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces raided a Hamas bomb factory and arrested 11 members of the rival Islamist faction in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, a senior police officer said. The raid was part of a law-and-order drive pursued by Abbas in the West Bank since he broke with Hamas over its seizure of the Gaza Strip last year and revived peacemaking with Israel.Ramadan Awad, chief of the Palestinian Authority police in Hebron, said more than 100 kg (220 lbs) of explosives were seized along with ammunition and homemade firearms.The factory was preparing bombs which would have been used against us and against the will of the Palestinians, he told Reuters.A Hamas official in Hebron said the targeted building had no links to the Islamic faction .Abbas has also deployed Palestinian security forces in other major West Bank cities like Nablus and Jenin.(Reporting by Haitham al-Tamimi, Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Charles Dick)

Inspectors eye Russian help for Iranian nuclear experiments: NYT Fri Oct 10, 1:48 PM ET

NEW YORK (AFP) - International inspectors are looking into whether a Russian scientist helped Iran carry out experiments on how to detonate a nuclear weapon, The New York Times reported Friday. Quoting unnamed US and European officials, the report said inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency are seeking information from the scientist, who they believe acted on his own as an adviser on experiments described in a lengthy document obtained by the agency.The officials ... said that the document appeared authentic ... but they made it clear that they did not think the scientist was working on behalf of the Russian government, the report added.Still, it is the first time that the nuclear agency has suggested that Iran may have received help from a foreign weapons scientist in developing nuclear arms.

Six powers trying to scale back Iran's nuclear ambitions will consult soon via telephone about the next steps to take at the United Nations, a State Department official said Wednesday.Top State Department and foreign ministry officials from the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia will debate further UN Security Council action to halt Iran's sensitive nuclear work, the official said.The West and Israel have accused Iran of using its nuclear program as a cover to build nuclear arms. But Tehran insists its program is strictly peaceful and solely aimed at generating electricity.

Long road ahead to resolve Georgia-Russia crisis: Kouchner by Claire Snegaroff Fri Oct 10, 1:33 PM ET

GORI, Georgia (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Friday that a long road lay ahead to resolve issues remaining from August's Georgia-Russia war, even after Russian troops withdrew from buffer zones around Georgia's rebel regions.

On a visit to Georgia to check first-hand whether Russia was complying with an EU-brokered ceasefire, Kouchner said Russia had fulfilled its obligation to withdraw from buffer zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Friday.The Russians needed to have left the adjacent zones, they have, he said, referring to the buffer zones.But he also noted that Russian forces had not yet withdrawn fully to positions held before the war.Negotiations will begin in five days in Geneva. Nothing is perfect, it's a long road, step by step, he said. For the moment it seems to be relatively satisfying.Under an agreement brokered by the European Union in September, Russia had until Friday to withdraw from Georgian territory outside of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the so-called buffer zones.But the initial ceasefire agreement that ended the war in August called for Russian soldiers to withdraw to positions held before the conflict.Russian forces remained Friday in at least two positions they did not hold prior to the conflict: the Akhalgori district of South Ossetia and the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia. Both areas were under Georgian control before August.We had said the adjacent zones first and the adjacent zones have been emptied, Kouchner said. It's not the same step.He added that Akhalgori is a problem we are aware of and we will obviously begin discussing it in Geneva, referring to international talks on the crisis due to take place on October 15.After talks with Kouchner, President Mikheil Saakashvili said Georgia would continue to insist that Russian forces leave the country entirely.The Russians must withdraw from the whole of Georgia. We will never tolerate the occupation of Georgia, Saakashvili told reporters in the Black Sea city of Batumi.Saakashvili also thanked France and the EU for its role in the crisis, saying: The Georgian people for the first time in their history felt they were not alone in the face of aggression.In a statement released in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana confirmed that Russian forces have completed their planned withdrawal from the buffer zones.

Solana said he hoped the pullout would allow internally displaced people to return to their homes and contribute to the normalisation of living conditions in these areas.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told reporters in Kyrgyzstan that Russia was fully complying with the ceasefire.Everything that depended on us we've done. All the obligations we undertook... we have fulfilled, he said.But Georgia's Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said Friday Russia had not fully respected the terms of the ceasefire and warned against a return to normal relations with Moscow. After accompanying EU monitors on patrol near South Ossetia, Kouchner spoke with villagers returning to the area following the Russian withdrawal and later visited a tent camp in the city of Gori for Georgians who had fled their homes during the conflict. This is always very sad to see some houses destroyed, and the people coming back and discovering their belongings in such a desperate state, he said. The French foreign minister's visit came amid EU divisions over whether Russia has fulfilled its promise under the ceasefire to pull back from positions in Georgia after the August war. Diplomats say some countries including the Baltic nations, Poland and Sweden are insisting Russia must fully withdraw to positions held before the war and reduce troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to pre-conflict levels. But for France and many other member states, the Russian withdrawal from buffer zones adjacent to the rebel regions was the only condition to be fulfilled, diplomats say. More than 3,500 Russian peacekeepers were deployed in the two regions prior to the conflict and Moscow now intends to keep more than 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow recognised as independent states in August. Russian troops and tanks surged into Georgia on August 8 to beat back a Georgian offensive to wrest control of South Ossetia from separatists.

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

TSE drops 40% in the last 4 months.
DOW down 40% from record close oct 9,2007
DOW down 35% from its high this yearon may 2,2008.
DOW drops 18% this week,worst in 112 year history.
S&P drops 18% this week.
S&P worst weekly drop since 1933.
NASDAQ drops 15% this week.
Stocks lose $2.4 trillion dollars this week.

G-7 Commit to All Necessary Steps' to Stem Global Meltdown By Simon Kennedy

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Group of Seven finance chiefs, meeting after stocks plunged and as a global recession looms, vowed to prevent the failure of vital banks while failing to unveil new initiatives for thawing credit markets. The current situation calls for urgent and exceptional action, the finance ministers and central bankers said in a statement after talks in Washington yesterday. They pledged to take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit and money markets without detailing how that would be accomplished. Signaling they would intervene to avoid a repeat of last month's collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the officials promised to ensure major banks have access to cash and are able to tap public funds for capital. By refraining from specific fresh measures such as embracing a U.K. plan to guarantee loans between banks, they still run a risk of disappointing investors. They've seen what Lehman did and the repercussions, said Jeff Pantages, chief investment officer at Alaska Permanent Capital Management in Anchorage, which oversees $2 billion. If you're a bondholder, you've got to feel better. If you're a shareholder, you're not so sure.Lehman's downfall precipitated the latest chapter of the 14-month crisis, causing banks to stop lending to each other out of concern they may not get their funds back. The G-7's willingness to now back systematically important financial institutions may provide some relief for Morgan Stanley, whose stocks and bonds dropped this week on concerns for its health.

Bank Discussions

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said no bank was singled out in the discussions yesterday. The policy makers from the U.S., Japan, Germany, U.K., France, Canada and Italy convened after stock indexes this month plunged more than 20percent from Japan to Europe to North America. The G-7 nations were under pressure to roll out new policies and adopt a united front to quell the panic in markets after their previous steps failed to do so. Instead, they outlined principles for all nations to follow. Measures taken should protect taxpayers and avoid potentially damaging effects on other countries, the group said. In the past month, European countries have taken unilateral actions to increase bank-deposit guarantees, spurring concern that savers would drain cash from nations with less protection.

Paulson said it would be naive to think that different nations in different circumstances could come up with the same policy paths.

Emergency Actions

In the past two weeks, global central banks executed emergency interest-rate cuts and pumped more cash into markets, the Federal Reserve said it would buy commercial paper, European governments bailed out banks and the U.K. and U.S. said they would start taking equity stakes in financial companies. Money markets remain gridlocked even so, with the three- month London interbank offered rate climbing to 4.82 percent yesterday, a record premium over the Fed's benchmark rate. The seizure spurred British policy makers to propose a program to backstop loans between banks.

G-7 officials shied away from the U.K. idea, which would either turn central banks into clearing houses for banks' loans or have governments back the obligations. The jump in borrowing costs and restricted access to credit prompted Merrill Lynch & Co. to predict the G-7 economies next year will be the weakest since 1982.

Stock Slump

U.S. stocks fell for an eighth straight day yesterday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average capping its worst week since 1914. The MSCI World Index of equities in 23 developed countries slid 20 percent this week, the most since records began in 1970.

Policy makers expressed confidence that investors will ultimately recognize the scale of actions under way, including a new U.S. plan to buy stocks in a broad array of financial companies. We have taken a lot of actions, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said. My experience of markets is that it always takes a little time to capture the elements, of the decisions taken, he said. Paulson signaled his top priority is getting his plan to buy financial stocks running as soon as he can. This is a plan that I'm quite confident will work, he said. The Treasury chief also said ``we have more to do in the liquidity area.The American plan follows U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's 50 billion pound ($87 billion) program that will partly nationalize at least eight lenders.

Canadian Plan

Canada's government yesterday moved to shore up its banks by saying it will buy as much as C$25 billion ($21.6 billion) in mortgages from them. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck and Bundesbank President Axel Weber said they're working on a package of measures to rescue banks that'll be revealed before markets open next week. The situation in financial markets is demanding unusual and far-reaching decisions from all policy makers, Weber told reporters. There is no alternative to these measures because banks have come under strong pressure.While the joint statement made no mention of currencies, Trichet said the group viewed excess volatility in exchange rates as detrimental and urged China to allow faster gains in the yuan. Highlighting the stakes facing the world economy, further talks will be held this weekend. The G-7 officials will meet today with President George W. Bush and gather with counterparts from the Group of 20, which includes emerging markets.

European Summit

Trichet will head to Paris for a summit of European leaders tomorrow that French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said will seek to go beyond the G-7's agreements.

Rifts within the G-7 were exposed by an unprecedented public split in which Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti rejected a draft statement yesterday for being too weak. The ultimate text that won his blessing was shorter than the original and aimed at wielding a strong psychological impact, Lagarde said. Tremonti after the meeting described the Basel II accord that regulates accounting for banks as dead and said he will propose a shake-up of global financial architecture today. The G-7 promised to implement high-quality accounting standards.Earlier, Italian President Silvio Berlusconi sowed confusion by saying governments may close financial markets, only to reverse himself an hour later. To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Kennedy in Washington at skennedy4@bloomberg.net

US to buy stake in banks; first since Depression By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer OCT 11,08

WASHINGTON - The government will buy an ownership stake in a broad array of American banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said late Friday, announcing the historic step after stock markets jolted still lower around the world despite all efforts to slow the selling stampede.

Separately, the U.S. and the globe's other industrial powers pledged to take decisive action and use all available tools to prevent a worldwide economic catastrophe.This is a period like none of us has ever seen before, declared Paulson at a rare Friday night news conference. He said the government program to purchase stock in private U.S. financial firms will be open to a broad array of institutions, including banks, in an effort to help them raise desperately needed money.The administration received the authority to take such direct action in the $700 billion economic rescue bill that Congress passed and President Bush signed last week.

Earlier Friday, stock prices hurtled downward in the United States, Europe and Asia, even as President Bush tried to reassure Americans and the world that the U.S. and other governments were aggressively addressing what has become a near panic.A sign of how bad things have gotten: A drop of 128 points in the Dow Jones industrials was greeted with sighs of relief after the index had plummeted much further on previous days. The week ended as the Dow's worst ever, with the index down an incredible 40.3 percent since its record close almost exactly one year earlier, on Oct. 9. 2007.

Investors suffered a paper loss of $2.4 trillion for the week, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, and for the past year the losses have totaled $8.4 trillion.It was even worse overseas on Friday. Britain's FTSE index ended below the 4,000 level for the first time in five years; Germany's DAX fell 7 percent and France's CAC-40 finished down 7.7 percent. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 9.6 percent, also hitting a five-year low. For the week, the Nikkei lost nearly a quarter of its value. Russia's market never even opened.Paulson announced the administration's new effort to prop up banks at the conclusion of discussions among finance officials of the Group of Seven major industrialized countries. That group endorsed the outlines of a sweeping program to combat the worst global credit crisis in decades.Earlier this week, Britain had moved to pour cash into its troubled banks in exchange for stakes in them — a partial nationalization.Paulson said the U.S. program would be designed to complement banks' own efforts to raise fresh capital from private sources. The government's stock purchases will be of nonvoting shares so it will not have power to run the companies.The purchase of stakes in companies would be in addition to the main thrust of the $700 billion rescue effort, which is to buy bad mortgages and other distressed assets from financial institutions. The aim is to unthaw frozen credit, get banks to resume more normal lending operations and stave off severe problems for businesses and everyday Americans alike.It would mark the first time the government has taken equity ownership in banks in this manner since a similar program was employed during the Depression.In 1989, the government created the Resolution Trust Corp. to deal with the aftermath of the savings and loan crisis. It disposed of the assets of failed savings and loans.

Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke met with their counterparts from the world's six other richest countries late in the day as the rout of financial markets sped ahead despite earlier dramatic rescue efforts in the U.S. and abroad.

In a statement at the end of that meeting, the G7 officials vowed to protect major banks and to prevent their failure. They also committed to working to get credit flowing more freely again, to support the efforts of banks to raise money from both public and private sources, to bolster deposit insurance and to revive the battered mortgage financing market.They did not provide specifics beyond that five-point framework.At the White House earlier in the day, Bush said, We're in this together and we'll come through this together. He added, Anxiety can feed anxiety, and that can make it hard to see all that's being done to solve the problem.He made it clear the United States must work with other countries to battle the worst financial crisis that has jolted the world economy in more than a half-century. We've seen that problems in the financial system are not isolated to the United States, he said. So we're working closely with partners around the world to ensure that our actions are coordinated and effective.The Dow dropped a little over 100 points while he was speaking. Fear has tightened its grip on investors worldwide even as the United States and other countries have taken a series of radical actions including an unprecedented, coordinated interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks. Besides the United States, the other members of the G7 meeting in Washington are Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada. Finance officials also planned to meet with Bush Saturday at the White House. We are in a development where the downward spiral is picking up speed, said Germany's Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, who wanted to see an orchestrated response among the G7.

So did French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who said a coordinated, synchronized and rightly timed approach was needed. An even larger group of nations — called the G20 — will meet with Paulson on Saturday evening. How the world's finance officials and central bank presidents can better contain the spreading financial crisis also will dominate discussions at the weekend meetings of the 185-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington. The British, who recently announced a plan to guarantee billions of dollar worth of debt held by major banks, have been pitching that idea to the rest of the G7 members. The idea behind all these ideas — as well as bold steps previously announced in recent weeks —is to get credit flowing more freely again. In the United States, hard-pressed banks and investment firms are drawing emergency loans from the Federal Reserve because they can't get money elsewhere. Skittish investors have cut them off, moving their money into safer Treasury securities. Financial institutions are hoarding whatever cash they have, rather than lending it to each other or customers. The lending lockup — which is making it harder and more expensive for businesses and ordinary people to borrow money — is threatening to push the United States and the world economy as a whole into a deep and painful recession. In Europe, governments have moved to protect nervous bank depositors. Germany pledged to guarantee all private bank savings and CDs in the country, and Iceland and Denmark followed suit. Ireland went even further by also guaranteeing Irish banks' debts. The United States will temporarily boost deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 in cases where its banks or savings and loans fail. The Fed, meanwhile, has repeatedly tapped its Depression-era authority to be a lender of last resort, not only to financial institutions but also to other types of companies. Earlier this week, the Fed said it would buy massive amounts of companies' debts, in another unprecedented effort to break through the credit clog. Associated Press writers Harry Dunphy, Desmond Butler, Martin Crutsinger and Deb Reichmann contributed to this report.

G7 undermines price discovery October 10, 2008, 10:51 PM by NP Editor
Terence Corcoran, markets, bailouts,The purpose of markets is to allow people to determine prices ,By Terence Corcoran

Speculation raged throughout the day yesterday as to whether the G7 cabal of finance ministers would reach a consensus on a coordinated mass effort to end the global financial crisis. As the day progressed, and the meeting got underway in Washington, many of the worst ideas appeared to have fallen by the wayside. That doesn’t mean the financial markets of individual countries won’t continue to struggle under the burden of unprecedented and troubling interventions, including U.S. government purchase of bank equity.The list keeps growing. Governments are pushing to invest directly in banks, put all deposits under unlimited insurance guarantees, pass laws to allow treasury departments to buy mortgages and related instruments, even lending between banks could come with government guarantees. What all these initiatives have in common is their ability to undermine and prevent market forces from operating. The purpose of markets — the only purpose of markets, some might say — is to allow people to determine prices. Without trades in an open market, there can be no accurate determination of value. And without prices, nobody can know what assets are worth and what to pay for them. And without that knowledge, nothing can happen.In the current financial crisis, the only functioning markets appears to be the stock markets, where traders are doing their best to divine price levels in a world distorted, even frozen, by increasing government activity. Even the Canadian banking system, allegedly rock solid, came under pressure when the government brought new uncertainty to the market.

In a move yesterday, Ottawa announced a so-called relief plan to buy up to $25-billion in insured mortgage pools from Canadian banks. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the plan would help Canadian banks raise long-term funds for consumers, home buyers and businesses. Really? Looks more like a bailout of a banking system that a week ago didn’t need one. The plan appears to send $25-billion worth of bank mortgage paper, already guaranteed by the government’s Central Mortgage and Housing Corp., directly into hands of government. Is this Canada’s quota of home-grown subprime-like mortgage loans? When news of the package started to leak out Thursday, Canadian bank shares began a plunge that continued yesterday. Their status would not have been helped by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who said in an interview that the governments of all G7 countries now own up to the fact that their banks are going to need support.No wonder stock markets are gyrating wildly. How can you value shares, especially bank shares, when banks can’t do business, when they can’t accurately value the assets in their own portfolios let alone another bank’s assets, when governments are playing with interest rates, and now when some banks themselves join in seeking government aid.Instead of allowing banks to value and trade in mortgage assets on the open market, setting accurate prices, the system is likely to remain frozen — unless governments plan to buy up all under-performing assets. The financial system isn’t frozen, the price discovery system is frozen.
A small step in allowing more accurate valuation of mortgage and other assets is expected to come this weekend from the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board. The board will provide new guidance that will allow banks and other financial institutions to modify rigid mark-to-market rules that forced them to write off large chunks of assets that may actually have value. The large write offs forced banks to take hits to their capital, distorting their balance sheets, creating credit squeezes and punishing share values.The more governments move in on the banks and the financial markets, with blanket insurance guarantees and nationalizations, the less opportunity there is for real price discovery. Such moves also increase investor and consumer uncertainty. The Financial Times reported yesterday that Germans were stunned to learn of the government’s plan for total insurance coverage on all deposits. If they are doing this, then the situation must really be desperate, said one German consumer.

There are small signs that some good sense may yet overtake the G7 regulatory rush. In the U.K., where the Labour government announced plans to buy up equity positions in banks, some banks are resisting the offer. They would rather sell shares to private non-government investors than expose themselves to government meddling and the controls that would inevitably accompany any government investment.Without a return to market pricing of assets, especially U.S. mortgage assets, but also all forms of financial instruments — from derivatives to bank loans to corporate loans — the financial markets will continue to be paralyzed. The only functioning market right now is the stock market. And even those markets looked to be at risk yesterday when Italy’s president said he thought equity markets should be closed. That idea died, avoiding a total system lock-up. At least one attempt to determine prices and values is still functioning, as best it can. Financial Post,Terence Corcoran is Editor of the Financial Post.

G7 vows action to douse global firestorm,Firestorm sweeps world markets
Australia best placed, says Swan Lift the savings surety: Turnbull
October 11, 2008 - 2:08PM

Group of Seven finance chiefs today unveiled a five-point plan to fight the global economic firestorm and restore confidence in the financial system by shoring up struggling banks.The G7 agrees today that the current situation calls for urgent and exceptional action, the US Treasury said in a statement on behalf of G7 nations.We commit to continue working together to stabilise financial markets and restore the flow of credit, to support global economic growth, it added after finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy and Canada met in Washington.Treasury secretary Henry Paulson said it was an aggressive plan to address the turmoil in global financial markets and the stresses on our financial institutions.Washington would start moving as soon as we can to inject capital into troubled banks, he told journalists. We're going to do it as soon as we can do it and do it effectively.And he added: We are in close coordination and communication with Japan and China and other investors around the world.Under the G7 plan, the economic powers would seek to ensure that banks ``can raise capital from public as well as private sources, in sufficient amounts to re-establish confidence and permit them to continue lending to households and businesses.The seven nations also committed to taking decisive measures to stop further bank collapses and unfreeze credit lines to pump more liquidity into the market.The move came after global stock markets went into a freefall today as panicked investors found no place to hide, even though Wall Street managed to stem the losses in a stomach-churning session of ups and downs.Some markets plunged 10 per cent in the worst performance since the 1987 stock crash as part of a global meltdown that began with Tokyo's 9.6 per cent nosedive.If you could measure the overall confidence level of investors, it would likely be so low that it would frighten the rest of the longs out of the market, said Kevin Giddis at Morgan Keegan.

This is the scary part of the movie where the slasher is hiding in the shadows around the corner waiting to pounce.On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw early losses of as much as 700 points, and two sudden spurts into positive territory before closing down 128.00 points (1.49 per cent) at 8,451.19.The market saw a stomach-turning session at the end of a vicious week of selling that sent the Dow and S&P indexes tumbling 18 per cent.US President George W Bush, who is due to meet tomorrow with G7 ministers at the White House, insisted the raging firestorm would be put out.As stock exchanges from Tokyo to London to New York were sucked deeper into the turmoil, Bush blamed uncertainty and fear for much of the global financial meltdown.Anxiety can feed anxiety and that can make it hard to see all that is being done, he said in a White House statement. We can solve this crisis, and we will.London's FTSE 100 index skirted close to a 10-per cent loss before a slight pullback. The Paris CAC 40 dived 10.57 per cent and there were similar losses in Frankfurt.Japan's Nikkei-225 index closed down 9.62 per cent, Hong Kong lost 7.2 per cent and Singapore 7.34. Tokyo briefly halted some trading in futures and options as the Nikkei saw its biggest fall since the crash of October 1987.A fresh injection $US45.5 billion ($A66.57 billion) into Japanese money markets failed to stop the collapse as the crisis claimed its first Japanese victim, with Yamato Life Insurance filing for bankruptcy protection.Nowhere was immune from the rout. South America's largest stock market in Sao Paulo was suspended after the market slid more than 10 per cent. Trading in Moscow was also halted.And in Mexico, the central bank had to pump billions of dollars into the market to help the plummeting peso which reached record lows.European heads of state and government meanwhile agreed to hold a financial crisis summit in Paris on Sunday to define a joint action plan for the eurozone and the European Central Bank, the French presidency said.Despite repeated pledges to coordinate their action, EU governments have gone their own ways so far in tackling the crisis at the national level.AFP

G7 finance chiefs pledge action to stem bank crisis
Updated: Fri Oct. 10 2008 17:07:59 CTV.ca News Staff

The world's top finance officials have pledged to take all actions needed to stem the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. The so-called Group of Seven countries released a five-point plan that they say will unfreeze the credit crisis that has hit Wall Street and worldwide markets. The G7 said they would take decisive action and use all available tools to protect major financial institutions from failure. They also committed to get credit flowing again, support banks' efforts to raise money, bolster deposit insurance and revive the mortgage financing market. They did not provide specifics besides the sweeping five-point plan. The actions should be taken in ways that protect taxpayers and avoid potentially damaging effects on the countries, the finance officials said in a statement. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke met with their counterparts from the G7, including Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, in Washington Friday. Paulson made another major announcement Friday evening, saying that the U.S. will buy an ownership stake in a number of American banks -- for the first time since the Great Depression. This is a period like none of us has ever seen before, Paulson said in a rare Friday night news conference. He said the move will help banks raise desperately needed money. Besides the United States and Canada, the G7 countries are Japan, Germany, Britain, France, and Italy.

Wild week for markets

A turbulent week at the markets came to a wild close Friday with the loonie posting a record one-day decline and the Toronto stock exchange briefly dropping below the 9,000 level for the first time in three years. The main S&P/TSX composite index closed at 9,065.2, down 534.98 points on the day. But at one point on Friday it was down nearly 750 points. The TSX index lost 1,738 points or 16 per cent of its value this week. The Canadian dollar fell nearly five cents against the U.S. dollar to a low of 82.41 cents US Friday, but rebounded at close to 84.69 cents US. Since November 2007, when the dollar hit an all-time peak of 110.3 cents US, the loonie has fallen more than a quarter. The Bank of Canada's exchange rate website says the dollar hasn't fallen more than three cents in one day since June 21, 1961, when it lost 3.38 cents US. It hasn't been below 83 cents since Feb. 21, 2003. The TSX index was particularly hit hard by energy stocks, which have lost value as oil prices continue to retreat. The November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed at US$77.70 down $8.89 a barrel Friday. New York's Dow Jones industrials closed down 128 points to 8,451.19, following up on a 679-point retreat yesterday.

The Nasdaq composite index gained 4.39 points to close at 1,649.51 while the S&P 500 index lost 10.70 points to close at 899.22. Momentum is running against the market and you don't want to get hit by a train, Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in New York, told The Associated Press. This is now about market psychology. There's extreme fear and panic out there.Overseas, Asian and European markets slumped sharply on Friday as investors there also continued to sell hard.

London's FTSE 100 index slumped 5.24 per cent while the German DAX was down 6.9 per cent and the Paris CAC-40 fell 9.8 per cent. In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index in Japan lost 881.06 points, or 9.6 per cent, to 8,276.43 -- the lowest closing level since May 2003. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell more than 8 per cent while the Kospi index in South Korea lost 7.4 per cent. Shanghai's index fell 4.1 per cent and Singapore's Straits Times index lost 7 per cent. In Australia, observers called the slump Black Friday after the key S&P/ASX200 dropped 8.34 per cent, or 360.2 points -- its sharpest one-day percentage loss ever. The freefall was largely in response to the massive sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday and rising global economic uncertainty. Selling is unstoppable in New York and Tokyo, said Yutaka Miura, senior strategist at Shinko Securities Co. Ltd. in Tokyo told The Associated Press.

Investors were gripped by fear.

Also Friday, Flaherty announced that the government will buy $25 billion in mortgage-backed securities from Canadian banks in a bid to maintain the availability of credit. The banks responded by cutting their prime rates. With files from The Associated Press.

US President George W Bush, who is due to meet tomorrow with G7 ministers at the White House, insisted the raging firestorm would be put out.As stock exchanges from Tokyo to London to New York were sucked deeper into the turmoil, Bush blamed uncertainty and fear for much of the global financial meltdown.Anxiety can feed anxiety and that can make it hard to see all that is being done, he said in a White House statement. We can solve this crisis, and we will.London's FTSE 100 index skirted close to a 10-per cent loss before a slight pullback. The Paris CAC 40 dived 10.57 per cent and there were similar losses in Frankfurt.Japan's Nikkei-225 index closed down 9.62 per cent, Hong Kong lost 7.2 per cent and Singapore 7.34. Tokyo briefly halted some trading in futures and options as the Nikkei saw its biggest fall since the crash of October 1987.A fresh injection $US45.5 billion ($A66.57 billion) into Japanese money markets failed to stop the collapse as the crisis claimed its first Japanese victim, with Yamato Life Insurance filing for bankruptcy protection.Nowhere was immune from the rout. South America's largest stock market in Sao Paulo was suspended after the market slid more than 10 per cent. Trading in Moscow was also halted.And in Mexico, the central bank had to pump billions of dollars into the market to help the plummeting peso which reached record lows.

European heads of state and government meanwhile agreed to hold a financial crisis summit in Paris on Sunday to define a joint action plan for the eurozone and the European Central Bank, the French presidency said.Despite repeated pledges to coordinate their action, EU governments have gone their own ways so far in tackling the crisis at the national level.AFP

MONEYNETDAILY China stiffing America for $100 billion in debt Yet U.S. taxpayers helping Beijing as part of trillion-$ credit bailout October 10, 2008
10:15 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh 2008 WorldNetDaily

While Chinese companies are in line to benefit directly from U.S. taxpayers' $700 billion-plus bailout of Wall Street, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial institutions, Beijing is stiffing the U.S. for $100 billion or more in unpaid debt.

The status of the Chinese economy, including its repudiated debt, has prompted one analyst to warn of an ominous threat involving China's finances and suggest the possibility of a dramatic reversal for the so-called Chinese Miracle.One of the greatest problems facing China is the government's failure to acknowledge and effectively address the true extent of state institutions' bad debt, Kevin O'Brien writes in an article titled, Reassessing China's Sovereign Risk: Emerging Global and Domestic Trends Threaten the 'Chinese Miracle.O'Brien's report was published at a website for the Global Association of Risk Professionals, a not-for-profit independent trade association of risk management practitioners around the world. It has 77,000 members from fields such as banking, investment management and academics.

One problem that should be addressed, he writes, is the $260 billion in sovereign debt owed U.S. and other investors which China has said it simply won't repay.The repayment obligation was inherited by the People's Republic of China, when the communists took control in 1949. The successor government doctrine of settled international law affirms continuity of obligations among international recognized successive governments, O'Brien said.The PRC is the internationally recognized successor government … which contracted the credit sovereign debt … and which had a loan agreement that states that such debt is intended to be a binding engagement upon the Republic of China and its successors.The bonds, however, were excluded from a 1979 settlement of Chinese debts and in 1987, China even concluded a discriminatory settlement accord with bondholders in Great Britain – an agreement that excluded from settlement any bonds held by non-UK citizens.Then in 2006, the Chinese Ministry of Finance issued an official communiqué addressed to the Embassy of the United States of America in China, in which the Chinese government formally repudiated China's defaulted full faith and credit sovereign debt and announced that it would not repay any debt held by American citizens, O'Brien said.The repudiation still stands, even though the China Economic Review confirmed that major Chinese banks own $8 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities that are the targets of bailout provisions.Bank of China said last month it owned $7.5 billion in Fannie and Freddie bonds, the report continued. The bank also held $5.2 billion in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the two agencies.Those owners will be among the beneficiaries of the overall bailout plan assembled by the government and funded by taxpayers to rescue bad debt created by an agenda of loaning money to subprime recipients who may not have had the wherewithal to repay the loans.

Recipients of the U.S. taxpayers' generosity also may include various private Chinese interests with investments in American real estate and mortgage.As recently as three weeks ago, China Investment Corp. was in active discussions to buy into U.S. financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley.All the while Congress has been aware of the Chinese default but unwilling to mandate action.Elton Gallegly, a California Republican in Congress, called it the China debt syndrome.After Saddam Hussein's government was replaced in Iraq, China demanded that the new government pay off the debt Saddam's regime ran up against China. China prevailed and is getting 100 percent of the more than $10 billion Iraq owes it, he said in a recent commentary.China, however, refuses to recognize the debt its current government inherited when the communists took control in 1949. That debt includes about $260 billion on bonds issued by the former Republic of China. Of that, more than 300 American citizens are owed nearly $100 billion from bonds on which the People's Republic of China has defaulted, the congressman wrote.It's time China owned up to its international obligations. Pressure is the only thing China understands. And pressure works. Americans weren't the only ones owed billions when the communists seized control. British citizens were among the bondholders communist China had been ignoring. That lasted until 1987, when Great Britain enacted a law denying Chinese access to British capital markets and China responded by negotiating a settlement to pay off the bonds, he wrote.Now, he said, China is in negotiations with France on defaulted bonds but continues to ignore the United States.He said worse than the actual monetary loss is the message that suggests China does not have to play by the rules when it competes in the global economy. This helps explain Beijing's refusal to abide by trade agreements, the manipulation of its currency, its underwriting of the genocidal regime in Sudan and its financial relationship with the terrorist-sponsoring government in Iran.To that list we can add China’s refusal to crack down on the widespread theft of intellectual property. The piracy of U.S. movies, books, music and other products is costing Americans billions of dollars each year, he said.

China, meanwhile, is boasting of its economy growth and influence. On a Chinese-promoted website today the headlines bragged: China ranks among the world’s top 30 economies,China Investment Corp to start investing in Japan stocks and China's ship industry strives for No. 1 spot.A resolution similar to Gallegly's also has been introduced in the Senate. The plan by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., targets China's attempt to conceal its defaulted government debt from investors.The Senate measure labels China's present investment-grade credit rating as artificial and in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox acknowledged that wrongful actions by a credit rating agency may subject the agency to revocation of its SEC registration, an announcement said.At Washington Watch, the criticism focused on the U.S. credit rating agencies that have allowed the situation to remain under the radar.In China's instance, the three largest rating agencies (Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch) are accused of intentionally violating their published criteria and metrics, said the report. Sovereign Advisers, a risk metrics firm assisting the defaulted creditors of the Chinese government, has performed comprehensive research on this matter and has provided the U.S. Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission with evidence suggesting that the actions of Standard & Poor's and Moody's were intentionally designed to conceal the Chinese government's debt repudiation and establish an artificial sovereign benchmark in order to increase ratings revenue from expanded securities issuance by Chinese corporations.On the Washington Watch website, several participants in an online discussion expressed concern over the situation.It is about time the PRC was made to pay for their financial indiscretions from the past, said one.The situation is crystal clear, said another. China has an obligation and if it wishes to operate globally it must meet this and any other obligations.If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck. China's credibility should be disclosed so investors are aware of the risk. China needs to pay its debts, added another.Gallegly's effort also was to encourage that knowledge among investors.This action will put all investors on notice that China has refused to honor its obligations in contravention of international law, he wrote. It will also encourage China to negotiate in good faith with American bondholders to settle their claims on defaulted bonds.O'Brien called China's actions selective default.He said that's a practice whereby a government selectively defaults on one specific class of full faith and credit soverereign obligations … yet honors repayment to selected creditors of a separate class..China's refusal to honor repayment of its full faith and credit sovereign debt to American bondholders is best characterized by a statement that appeared in a recent news article: When it comes to territory, China claims Tibet and Taiwan based on historical claims predating the current communist government assuming power, but when it comes to debts owed to American citizens, it's a different story, he wrote.

WND reported in 2007 about the influence China wielded over the American dollar because of its investments in financial instruments.WND also has reported extensively on a long list of defective and even dangerous products that have been exported from China to the U.S.

Iceland and UK in diplomatic war over banks
LUCIA KUBOSOVA 10.10.2008 @ 09:22 CET

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has accused Iceland of illegal action for freezing the accounts of UK private and public depositors in collapsed banks. What happened in Iceland is completely unacceptable. I've been in touch with the Icelandic prime minister. I said this is effectively illegal action that they have taken, Mr Brown told the BBC about Reykjavik's move to nationalise several Icelandic banks while preventing their British customers to access their money.Iceland has been pummelled by the ongoing bank crisis as its bank debts are many times its annual GDP of €14 billion, with fears that the entire nation of 320,000 people could go bankrupt. On Thursday (9 October), the country's government took over the last of three major banks and shut down the stock exchange. Trading in the Icelandic krona has ceased and foreign banks are not willing to take the currency even for lower rates.Reykjavik is supposed to pay out as much as €20,000 in compensation per frozen account at a total cost of €2.7 billion, but London has not received assurance that public authorities in Iceland will meet this commitment.The UK government has promised to protect hundreds of thousands private savers affected by the failed Icelandic banks but it is not clear what will happen to the over €1.1 billion that British public authorities such as councils, the police and fire services have invested in Iceland.This is fundamentally a problem with the Icelandic-registered financial services authority - they have failed not only the people of Iceland, they have failed people in Britain, complained Mr Brown.In a bid to boost pressure on the country's authorities, the British government has itself invoked the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act of 2001 in a bid to freeze the assets of Icelandic companies in the UK - which sparked an angry reaction by Reykjavik.Iceland's prime minister, Geir Haarde, told journalists it was not very pleasant to find out that a terrorist law was being applied against us, adding that he considered it as a completely unfriendly act.

I'm afraid that not many governments would have taken that very kindly, to be put in that category and I told the chancellor that we were not pleased with that, Mr Haarde said.It is expected that Iceland will have to turn to the International Monetary Fund for help and forced to accept strict disciplinary budget measures to restore fiscal and monetary stability.Next Tuesday, Reykjavik is expected to start talks with Russia over an emergency €4 billion Moscow has offered to provide to Reykjavik.

COULD BE FRIGID FRIDAY

FOR PEOPLE WHO THINK JESUS WAS NOT CREATED FROM A VIRGIN BIRTH, GOOD LUCK, LET GOD BE TRUTH AND EVERY MAN A LIER. MARY WAS A VIRGIN WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT PUT JESUS IN HER IN A VIRGIN BIRTH. JESUS WAS ALL GOD AND ALL HUMAN.

Scientists: Virginia shark's pup a virgin birth By STEVE SZKOTAK, Associated Press OCT 10,08

RICHMOND, Va. - Scientists have confirmed the second case of a virgin birth in a shark. In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.

The first documented case of asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, among sharks involved a pup born to a hammerhead at an Omaha, Neb., zoo.This first case was no fluke, Demian Chapman, a shark scientist and lead author of the second study, said in a statement. It is quite possible that this is something female sharks of many species can do on occasion.The aquarium sharks that reproduced without mates each carried only one pup, while some shark species can produce litters numbering in the dozen or more. The scientists cautioned that the rare asexual births should not be viewed as a possible solution to declining global shark populations.It is very unlikely that a small number of female survivors could build their numbers up very quickly by undergoing virgin birth, Chapman said.The medical mystery began 16 months ago after the death of the Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit at the Virginia Beach aquarium. No male blacktip sharks were present during her eight years at the aquarium.

In May 2007, the 5-foot, 94-pound shark died of stress-related complications related to her unknown pregnancy after undergoing a yearly checkup. The 10-inch shark pup was found during a necropsy of Tidbit, surprising aquarium officials. They initially thought the embryonic pup was either a product of a virgin birth or a cross between the blacktip and a male of another shark species — which has never been documented, Chapman said.Tidbit's pup was nearly full term, and likely would have been quickly eaten by really big sand tiger sharks that were in the tank, Chapman said in a telephone interview from Florida.That is what happened to the tiny hammerhead pup in the Omaha case.By the time they could realize what they were looking at, something munched the baby, he said of aquarium workers. The remains of the pup were used for the DNA testing.Virgin birth has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds, and has been suspected among sharks in the wild. The scientists who studied the Virginia and Nebraska sharks said the newly formed pups acquired one set of chromosomes when the mother's chromosomes split during egg development, then united anew.Absent the chromosomes present in the male sperm, the offspring of an asexual conception have reduced genetic diversity and, the scientists said, may be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild. A pup, for instance, can be more susceptible to congenital disorders and diseases.The scientists said their findings offer intriguing questions about how frequently automictic parthenogenesis occurs in the wild.It is possible that parthenogenesis could become more common in these sharks if population densities become so low that females have trouble finding mates, said Mahmood Shivji, one of the scientists and director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University in Florida.The DNA fingerprinting techniques used by the scientists are identical to those used in human paternity testing.Chapman, who is with the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook, was assisted in the study by Beth Firchau of the Virginia Aquarium.Chapman and Shivji were on the team that made the first discovery of virgin birth involving the Nebraska shark. On the Net: Virginia Aquarium: http://www.vmsm.com Stony Brook School of Marine and Atmospheric Science: http://www.somas.stonybrook.edu Oceanographic Center of Nova Southeastern University: http://www.nova.edu/ocean/ghri.

CNN NEWS VIDEO
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MIDEAST CONFLICT NEWS
http://news.yahoo.com/video/1874;_ylt=A0wNcxFdg6xIgbkAwD6z174F

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HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/

PSALMS 39:6
6 Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS FRI OCT 10,2008

09:30 AM -171.73
10:00 AM -260.93
10:30 AM -122.42
11:00 AM -272.00
11:30 AM -386.14
12:00 PM -424.29
12:30 PM -328.79
01:00 PM -314.77
01:30 PM -355.39
02:00 PM -506.17
02:30 PM -502.42
03:00 PM -477.97
03:30 PM +18.08
04:00 PM -128.00 8451.19

S&P 500 899.22 -10.70

NAS 1649.51 +4.39

GOLD 850.0 -36.5

OIL 80.52 -6.07

TSE 300 -534.98 9,065.20

CDNX -71.47 975.81

S&P/TSX 60 -34.31 546.25

UK -381.74 3,932.06

GERMANY -386.06 5,325.60

FRANCE -266.21 3,176.49

8 Trillion dollars lost in the markets in the last year.
Nasdaq touches lowest since 5/29 2003
S&P 500 touches lowest since 4/11 2003.
VIX exceeds 70 for the first time.
7 minutes into trading, Dow was down 680 points.
Dow was below 7900 points early.
Dow touches lowest since 4/16 2003.
Dow last closed below 8000 points on Mar 31, 2003.
Dow was up 76 points at 10:07AM after a 680 point drop right off.
2ND worst bear market of the post war era.
2.3 trillion, 17.4% loss in the markets in the last week
Federal Reserve has put hundreds of billions of dollars into the markets in the last few weeks.
India puts 8.2 billion into the Markets today.
As of 12PM 86 of the 100 companies on Nasdaq are down.
As of 12Pm Euro has lost one cent to the Dollar.
G7 LEADERS MEET IN WASHINGTON AROUND 1 PM.
The 185 members of the IMF meet this weekend also, as well as the G20 and South American leaders to tackle this crisis on the World.
15 BEAR MARKETS SINCE 1929, 2 BEAR MARKETS SINCE 2002.

Reports Secretary may seek individual stock circut breakers.
Moody's puts Goldman's long-term senior debt on outlook negitive.
MUFG'S $9 billion investment in Morgan Stanley approved by key regulators.
Morgan Stanleys capital injection from MUFG expected to close Tueday.

CDS STRATEGY

-Lighten financial shorts in credit ahead of the long weekend.
-Government intervention in Libor will hurt stocks;help credit.
-Lehman auction a stressor, but not to level of contagion expected.

Dow down 24% over 8 sessions.
Dow on track for worst weekly points loss in history.
Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq have not risen since september 30,2008.
Nasdaq down 23% over 8 sessions.
S&P on track for worst weekly loss on record.
Euro under $1.34 for first time since August 2007.
Crude Oil hits fresh one-year low,dips below $79 a barrel.

DOW WAS UP 300 POINTS IN LAST HALF HOUR, WAS DOWN 688 AT BEGINING.
FIRST TIME IN HISTORY DOW WENT THROUGH A 1000 POINT CHANGE.

EXCITING OR INSANITY TODAY ON THE MARKETS

First half hour:Dow down 621 points,rallies 688.
10-2PM:drops 650 points.
2-3PM:gyrates in 300 point range.
3-3:45PM:rallies 770 points.
3:45-4PM:drops 330 points.
Day end the Dow 128.00 POINTS.

-First tradeable rally in 3 weeks.
-No 3 O'Clock selloff.
-Go home long on a Friday? Someone does.

HELPING
1-Hopeing for join statement from the G7 Leaders.
2-Lehman credit-swap sellers posted collateral, no firms fail accordong to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

Analyists are calling for a coordinated action, coordinated capital injection, coordinated attemp to insure deposits so different countries are not struggling with different policies, and different strategies from their central Bankers.

UK TAKES BILLIONS FROM ICELAND BANKS
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076011/UK-Treasury-officials-fly-Iceland-retrieve-Britains-billions-Brown-declares-cold-war-freezing-THEIR-assets.html

WATCH THE EU START TAKING THE LEAD IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AS ITALY IS CALLING FOR A GLOBAL SYSTEM, JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS, THE EU WILL CONTROL THE WHOLE WORLDS ECONOMY.

Berlusconi Says Markets May Be Shut; G-7 Seeks United Remedy
By Simon Kennedy and Steve Scherer

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said governments may shut financial markets as the credit freeze pummels stocks and threatens a global recession. As equities suffered their worst week since the 1970s, Berlusconi said in Naples, Italy that markets may be shut while policy makers rewrite the rules of international finance.The discussions were revealed as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven nations sought a united front aimed at thwarting the crisis. Among the options: Pumping taxpayer funds into loss-ridden banks and guaranteeing lending between them and their deposits. Doing nothing is not an option at this stage, Bundesbank President Axel Weber told reporters in Washington. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said a coordinated basis is the only way to react to the situation.Unprecedented interest-rate cuts and bank bailouts have failed to quell panic in markets, putting officials under pressure to pull even more policy levers today or risk exacerbating the financial and economic turmoil. The gravity of the current situation is sinking into officials' mindsets, said Charles Diebel, head of European rates strategy at Nomura International Plc in London. It's time for the kitchen sink, as in throw everything there is at the problem, and on such a scale that the shock and awe will break the cycle of fear.

Statement Today

The officials from the U.S., Japan, Germany, U.K., France, Canada and Italy are gathering for the first time since the financial crisis intensified last month and spread more virulently beyond U.S. borders. They will release a statement about 6 p.m. Reflecting the seriousness of the crisis, President George W. Bush will meet the G-7 officials tomorrow, and the broader Group of Twenty will also convene. This is an opportunity to make sure that they're all on the same track, said former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. He urged that all of them now admit or all of them own up to the fact their own banks are going to need support, in an interview with PBS Television's Charlie Rose show. The G-7's dilemma is that even after a battery of policy actions, money markets remain gridlocked as banks shun lending to each other for fear they will lose the money or because they need it themselves. The cost of borrowing dollars for three months in London today rose to its highest this year and the rate in Tokyo jumped to the most since 1998.

Lukewarm at Best

Mistrust is set to persist, said Nick Stamenkovic, a fixed-income strategist in Edinburgh at RIA Capital Markets. While measures are moving in the right direction, reaction has been lukewarm at best.Policy makers are lining up more initiatives and may find the deepening crisis forces them to put aside initial concerns about the strategies of opposite numbers. U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling wants countries to guarantee lending between banks, either by turning central banks into clearing houses for the loans or having governments back them. That would be an effective way of easing the crisis, said Marc Chandler, head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York.

Reviewing Darling Plan

While U.S. officials have played down the idea without dismissing it outright, expressing concern that the step would be biased against financial institutions outside the banking sector, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said today we're reviewing the U.K. proposal. The U.S. already plans to follow Darling in another way by purchasing stakes in a wide range of banks within weeks, tapping authority included in the $700 billion rescue package passed by Congress last week. The U.K. is engineering a 50 billion pound ($87 billion) strategy to partly nationalize at least eight British banks. Japanese lawmakers are also considering reviving a law that expired in March that would allow them to inject public money into regional financial companies. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today it has significant latitude to take further steps to support banks and their depositors using emergency powers. European leaders have already promised to protect savers.

Governments must act now and decisively to restore confidence otherwise we are in for serious trouble and a long- run recession, said Moorad Choudhry, head of treasury at Europe Arab Bank Plc in London.

Country to Country

While arguing against taking ad hoc measures and suggesting an immediate relaxation of accountancy rules, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said solutions may still be different from country to country. He has argued banks in his country are in better shape than elsewhere. Apparently it's difficult to get the point across that banks and financial systems are facing different problems, he said in Washington. If governments fail, central banks may have more work to do having already executed emergency rate cuts this week. New York University professor Nouriel Roubini recommended they pare interest rates by at least 1.5 percentage points to avert a depression. Jacques Cailloux, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London, said today the European Central Bank will cut again before its governing council is next scheduled to meet Nov. 6. While a coordinated government response in the coming days through the G-7 is possible, it might not be sufficient to boost confidence in the system sufficiently quickly, said Cailloux.

In a report published yesterday, University of California Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen warned against a disjointed approach. The policy response needs to be decisive, he said. It needs to be global. The stakes could not be higher.To contact the reporter on this story: Simon Kennedy in Washington at skennedy4@bloomberg.net;

US stocks extend huge losses over credit concerns By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer OCT 10,08 12:30 PM

NEW YORK - Wall Street extended its devastating losses Friday, but prices swung sharply as investors scooped up some shares decimated by more than a week of intense and panicked selling. The Dow Jones industrials, down nearly 700 points in the opening minutes of trading, recovered to an advance of more than 100 before turning sharply lower again, and the other major indexes fluctuated widely as well. Frozen credit markets and a loss of confidence in the world's financial system have caused the Dow to drop 21 percent in just 10 trading days. The blue chip index tumbled 678 points Thursday, and is heading to its worst weekly point drop, and one of its biggest weekly percentage drops, since being created 112 years ago.Friday's gyrations were likely exacerbated by the computer-driven buy orders that kicked in when prices fell far enough to make some stocks — including the pummeled financial stocks — look like attractive bets. But that buying didn't necessarily reflect an easing of the market's deep despair, and so the heavy selling generally continued.

Fear has been running rampant all over the Street. Fear and greed, that's what rules the Street. I think the carcass has been stripped to the bone, said Dave Henderson, a floor trader on the New York Stock Exchange for Raven Securities Corp.The mood, it swings with the market. When we went positive, the euphoria down there was awesome. It's like at a football game, he said.While the market's declines were sharp Friday, some of the selling pressure appeared to ease after the steep drop at the open. Still, many investors have waited until the final hour of trading each day this week to hit the sell button, so investors appeared uneasy about how the market would look at 4 p.m., when the closing bell sounds.At the start of Friday's session, losses for the year totaled a staggering $8.3 trillion, as measured by the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, which tracks 5,000 U.S.-based companies representing nearly all stocks traded in the U.S.In midday trading, the Dow fell 388.53, or 4.53 percent, to 8,190.66. At its low point Friday, the Dow was at 7,882.51, just 60 points above its low in Wall Street's last bear market, 7,286.27, reached Oct. 9, 2002.Broader stock indicators also fell. The Standard & Poor's 500 index declined 55.64, or 6.11 percent, to 854.28, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 75.59, or 4.59 percent, 1,569.53.About 200 stocks advanced while about 3,000 declined on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to a heavy 1.08 billion shares.Investors continue to shift money into safer investments, most of it going into the government bond market. The yield on the three-month Treasury bill plunged to 0.28 percent from 0.58 percent late Thursday. That suggests that demand for T-bills, regarded by investors as the safest assets around, remains high.

Longer-term Treasury yields moved higher as investors moved into shorter term issues. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note rose to 3.87 percent from 3.76 percent late Thursday.Gold prices climbed $7.60 to $894.10 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while oil prices fell. A barrel of light, sweet crude declined $6.45 to $80.14 a barrel on the Nymex.Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank, said some investors are fearful of placing bets before the market shakes out for fear they will exacerbate their losses.You don't want to get hit by a train, he said. This is now about market psychology. There's extreme fear and panic out there.President Bush said Friday the government's efforts to rescue the financial sector was powerful enough to succeed but that it would take some time to be fully implemented.His remarks came as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven nations gathered Friday in Washington to discuss the economic meltdown. One of the potential remedies expected to be reviewed at the meeting is for governments to guarantee lending between banks.Central banks around the world were forced to cut interest rates this week after continuing problems in the credit market triggered concerns that banks will run out of money. Analysts have described the mood on trading floors as panicked, with investors bailing out of stocks on fears there is no end in sight to the financial carnage. A stream of selling forced exchanges in Austria, Russia and Indonesia to suspend trading, and those that remained opened were hammered. The rout in Australian markets caused traders there to call it Black Friday.European stocks sank, with Britain's FTSE-100 down 8.14 percent, German's DAX down 7.6 percent, and France's CAC-40 down 7.7 percent. In Asia, the collapse of Japan's Yamato Life Insurance caused already nervous investors to pull even more money out of the market — the Nikkei 225 fell 9.6 percent.

Prospects of further government help and, perhaps, attractive prices helped the financial sector show some signs of life Friday. Big national banks were among the gainers, including Bank of America Corp., which rose $1.14, or 5.8 percent, to $20.77. Some smaller banks also rose, including Fifth Third Bank Corp., which rose 19 cents, or 2 percent, to $9.92. Not all financials were enjoying a bounce, however. Morgan Stanley Inc. fell $4.41, or 35 percent, to $8.04 as investors worried that even with a major investment from Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. fell $19.25, or 19 percent, to $82.10. Citigroup Inc. said late Thursday it was suspending its bid to acquire Wachovia Corp., which will be acquired by Wells Fargo & Co. Citigroup rose 57 cents, or 4.4 percent, to $13.50, while Wells Fargo jumped 65 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $27.90. Wachovia surged $1.25, or 35 percent, to $4.85. General Electric Co., a bellwether for the U.S. economy and a company with a large financial operation, reported that its third-quarter earnings sank 22 percent. The conglomerate, one of the 30 companies that make up the Dow industrials, blamed the drop on more losses in its financing business, though earnings for the company met Wall Street projections. GE rose 19 cents, or 1 percent, to $19.20. Energy stocks fell sharply again Friday after leading the market lower Thursday. The drop in oil and tightness in credit fed investors' worries about the sector. Exxon Mobil Corp. fell $8.70, or 13 percent, to $59.30, while Chevron Corp. fell $5.21, or 8.1 percent, to $58.79. The Chicago Board Options Exchange's volatility index, known as the VIX, and often referred to as the fear index, surged above 70 early Friday, a record high. Wall Street also digested fresh economic data. The U.S. trade deficit edged down slightly in August, reflecting a drop in foreign oil from record levels. But the politically sensitive deficit with China increased as imports from that country hit an all-time high. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 19.27, or 3.86 percent, to 479.93. AP Business Writers Joe Bel Bruno and Dan Strumpf in New York contributed to this report. On the Net: New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com

Federal regulators clear Wells Fargo-Wachovia deal By SARA LEPRO, AP Business Writer OCT 10 12:40PM

NEW YORK - Federal antitrust regulators on Friday cleared Wells Fargo's $11.7 billion acquisition of Wachovia Corp., capping a weeklong battle for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank. The rapid approval comes a day after Citigroup Inc. walked away from its own efforts to buy Wachovia. Late Thursday, Citigroup broke off talks with Wells Fargo and federal regulators after the suitors failed to reach an agreement over how to split up the bank.San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. said Thursday it would proceed with the purchase and plans to complete the deal by the end of the fourth quarter. The acquisition still needs the approval of Wachovia shareholders.

The Federal Trade Commission included the deal on a list of transactions released Friday that received an early termination of their antitrust reviews. Early termination refers to the completion of a review by the FTC or Justice Department before the end of a 30-day period required under antitrust law.Citigroup agreed last week to buy Wachovia's banking operations for $2.1 billion in a deal brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Four days later, Wells Fargo stunned Citigroup by announcing that Wachovia's board had agreed to an $11.7 billion all-stock offer. Originally, the deal was valued at $15.1 billion, or $7 a share, but Wells Fargo stock has declined since it was announced.The fight for control of Wachovia moved to both state and federal court last weekend. Citigroup charged that Wells Fargo violated an exclusivity agreement it had with Wachovia.On Monday, at the urging of federal regulators, the parties agreed to halt all legal proceedings in an effort to reach a quick resolution outside of court. The standstill, after an extension, was set to end Friday morning.While Citigroup plans to seek $60 billion in damages for breach of contract, it has decided not to challenge the Wells Fargo-Wachovia deal in court.Wachovia shares rose $1.20, or 33 percent, to $4.80 in late morning trading. Wells Fargo shares were down 21 cents to $27.04. Citigroup shares added 27 cents to $13.20.

European markets plunge again; Nikkei plummets By PAN PYLAS, Associated Press Business Writer OCT 10,08

LONDON - European stock markets slumped in early trading Friday following massive sell-offs on Wall Street and Asia as lending rates between banks continue to rise despite this week's efforts by central banks to break the logjam in credit markets.

At mid-morning London time, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 233.84, or 5.4 percent, at 4,079.96, having fallen below the 4,000 mark earlier for the first time in five years. Germany's DAX was 383.70, or 7.9 percent, at 4,503.30, and France's CAC-40 was 209.67, or 6.1 percent lower at 3,233.03.In Vienna, the stock exchange has been suspended until midday after stocks tumbled 10 percent at the opening bell, and in Russia representatives of the MICEX and RTS exchanges said they suspended regular trading until further notice under orders from financial regulators.This week's coordinated interest rate cuts by the world's central banks to thaw frozen credit markets and boost investor confidence have fallen flat as markets remain gripped by fears about the scale and depth of the likely global recession.Overall it's the fact that despite the huge fire-fighting efforts of central banks worldwide we still haven't seen any thawing of interbank lending that is going to be causing the most concern now, said Matt Buckland, a dealer at CMC Markets in London.Again the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) rate at midday will be closely watched to see if there's any signs of easing here and it's going to be this plus the next stages of government intervention..that will dominate, he added.The latest woes in Europe came after the Dow Jones index in the U.S. closed 678.91 or, 7.3 percent lower, at 8,579.19, its first close below 9,000 in five years. The slide on the Dow was partly fueled by the decision of credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's to review its rating on General Motors Corp.The Dow's seven-day decline of 20.9 percent is the largest since the seven-day plunge ending Oct. 26, 1987, when the Dow lost 23.8 percent. That sell-off included Black Monday, the Oct. 19, 1987 market crash that saw the Dow fall nearly 23 percent in a single day.

In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index in Japan 881.06 points, or 9.6 percent, to 8,276.43, its lowest closing level since May 2003. It was its biggest one-day percentage loss since the stock market crash of October 1987 and meant that the Nikkei lost nearly a quarter of its value during the week.Investors were gripped by fear, said Yutaka Miura, senior strategist at Shinko Securities in Tokyo.Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are due to meet later Friday in Washington to address the financial meltdown but analysts are skeptical that they can do anything to soothe concerns about the world economy. US President George W Bush is due to make an address to the American people later in the day.I don't know what they can do. The actions of governments and central banks have had no effects, they haven't freed up credit markets and not inspired confidence in stock markets, said David Jones, chief markets strategist at IG Index.

Few places escaped the deepening gloom. In Australia, where the S&P/ASX200 plummeted a record 8.3 percent, market watchers were calling it Black Friday. Key indices in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and India were all down about 8 percent. South Korea's Kospi closed down 4.1 percent, while the Shanghai Composite Index posted a more moderate decline of 2.8 percent.And in Indonesia, authorities suspended trading indefinitely on the Jakarta Stock Exchange after they had halted trading Wednesday after the index plunged more than 10 percent.It's not just stocks that are taking a hammering. Oil prices continue to plummet and have fallen to a one-year low below $83 a barrel while currencies, especially the British pound have been sold heavily. The Japanese yen and gold remain in demand as safe-haven assets.Associated Press writers Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Zakki Hakim in Jakarata, Indonesia, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Asian markets plunge after huge Wall Street losses By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Writer OCT 10,08

TOKYO - A massive sell-off on Wall Street and escalating fears of a global recession sent Asian stocks plunging Friday, with Japan's benchmark index plunging more than 10percent. Selling is unstoppable in New York and Tokyo, said Yutaka Miura, senior strategist at Shinko Securities Co. Ltd. in Tokyo. Investors were gripped by fear.

Markets in Hong Kong, Australia, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines were all down more than 7 percent. Shanghai's index was down 3.8 percent.Indonesian authorities suspended trading indefinitely on the Jakarta Stock Exchange after they had halted trading Wednesday when the index plunged more than 21 percent over three days earlier this week.In Tokyo, the gut-wrenching drama left individual investors shellshocked.Kenji Akasaka, 69, president of a local printing company, said he had never seen it this bad in the 40 years he has traded stocks. He said he invests mainly in blue-chips including Toyota Motor Corp. and Nintendo Co.I pray before I go to bed that the Dow will recover, said Akasaka, 69, as he scanned a monitor displaying the latest market levels. I get sleepless, thinking about losses.Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average plummeted 10.3 percent to 8,217.50 in early afternoon trading and appeared headed for its second biggest one-day loss ever. The Tokyo bourse and the Osaka Securities Exchange briefly suspended some futures and options trading during the morning.The regional sell-off follow a 7.3 percent plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average Thursday to close below the 9,000-line for the first time in five years. Stocks nose-dived after a major credit-rating agency said it might cut its rating on General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., further rattling investors already fretting over the impact of tight credit on the economy.The Dow's seven-day decline of 20.9 percent is the largest since the seven-day plunge ending Oct. 26, 1987, when the Dow lost 23.8 percent. That sell-off included Black Monday, the Oct. 19, 1987 market crash that saw the Dow fall nearly 23 percent in a single day.The sluggishness in the credit markets that triggered much of the heavy selling in markets around the world since mid-September appeared little changed even after a string of interest rate cuts by central banks in the U.S., Europe and Asia this week in an attempt to resuscitate lending.There's no bottom to the stock markets now, said Francis Lun, general manager at Fulbright Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. There's no clue when it will stop.

Analysts also said there's pressing need for the U.S. to quickly implement the $700 billion plan to buy up toxic mortgage-related securities from troubled banks and financial institutions that are at the core of problem.In Japan, insolvencies in the insurance and real estate sectors accelerated the pessimism.Mid-sized Yamato Life Insurance Co. went bankrupt Friday on losses related to global stock woes, while New City Investment Corp.'s bankruptcy filing made it Japan's first real-estate investment trust to fail.Japanese Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano sought to reassure the country even as markets tumbled.We need to make sure that we don't get pulled too much by global tides, Yosano said. I hope investors Japan's makes decisions calmly based on Japan's economic fundamentals.Lucinda Chan, associate director of Macquarie Equities in Sydney, called the market moves ghastly.It is a very different and very unprecedented climate at the moment, she said. Growth is going to be a major concern in this market and that is why the Australian market is getting a very hard pinch because we are a commodity export nation.Asia's falls come as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations prepared to meet later Friday in Washington. Investors are not so sure that the G7 will announce effective measures to contain the global financial crisis, Miura in Tokyo said. In currencies, the dollar fell to 98.69 yen Friday afternoon Asia from 98.82 yen late Thursday. The euro stood at $1.3548 from $1.3560. Associated Press writers Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Zakki Hakim in Jakarata, Indonesia, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

From Times OnlineOctober 10, 2008 Bloodbath in Asian markets as Dow plummets
(AP)The Nikkei index had its biggest fall since the 1987 stock exchange crash
Jane Macartney in Beijing International crisis meeting

A seventh day of devastating falls on Wall Street triggered yet more panic in Asian markets this morning, with Tokyo facing its biggest one-day drop since the 1987 stock market crash and Singapore going into recession. The fear reverberated across Asia and the selling was brutally swift with every market dropping hard at the opening, taking the MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks excluding Japan down 3.5 percent to its lowest since June 2005. Oil prices fell to a new 12-month low below 84 U.S. dollars a barrel amid concerns an economic slowdown would weaken demand. Even calls by some OPEC members to cut output to shore up prices failed to instill confidence. The mood in markets took its tone from Wall Street where U.S. stocks plummeted as investors bet recent worldwide moves to try to thaw frozen credit markets would be insufficient to avert a global recession. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 7.3 percent. The bloodbath quickly spread. Sydney plunged 7.0 percent, Seoul was down 7.5 percent, Shanghai lost 3.8 percent and Hong Kong plummeted 8.0 percent. Indonesia simply announced that trading would be suspended indefinitely – after initially planning to reopen the market after a suspension imposed on Wednesday – to prevent deeper panic. Oh Hyun-Soek at Samsung Securities said: It’s beyond panic. Concerns about the global economy are deepening further and there is no sign of easing in the global credit crunch.The fear was underlined with the cost of protection against defaults in Asia’s sovereign and corporate debt soaring to record highs.

Singapore shares dropped 7.3 percent at the opening with the Straits Times Index down 76.2 points at 1,971.72 – its lowest since December 2004. Southeast Asia’s largest bank, DBS Group, fell 7.6 percent after government data showed the city state was now in recession. The island’s economy shrank at a worse-than-expected annualised, seasonally adjusted rate of 6.4 percent in the third quarter after declining 5.7 percent in the previous three-month period, putting the economy into a technical recession. But the hardest fall was in the region’s biggest market. Tokyo’s Nikkei average had sunk 10.6 percent, or 974.12 points, to finish the morning session at 8,183.37. That surpasses a 9.4 percent fall earlier in the week and would be the sharpest slide since a 14.9 percent one-day plunged during the 1987 crash. Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano urged investors to reach calm judgments in the face of the tumbling markets, stressing that Japan’s regional banks were strong as a whole. Australian shares dropped to fresh three-year lows with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index down 259.2 points at 4,061.7, its lowest since May 2005. Losses this week alone have already reached 15 percent. Even Australia's well-capitalised banks were caught up in the downturn, being sold off sharply in line with their troubled international counterparts. Lucinda Chan, client advisor at Macquarie, said: These are massive, almost unheard of big days down. These plunges are deep and they hurt deeply. People's nerves are really at the end of their tether. The contagion factor is certainly very clear. New Zealand's benchmark NZX-50 index fell 115.6 points, or 3.9 percent, to 2,828.5. So far this year it has fallen more than 28percent. Hong Kong shares plunged 8.0 percent in early trade, falling below 15,000 points for the first time in nearly three years. The benchmark. The blue chip Hang Seng index has fallen 1,211.48 points, or 7.6 percent, to 14,731.76 minutes after trading started Friday. The index rose 3.3 percent a day before.

Asian markets lose 11pc in early trade By Shane McLeod in Tokyo
October 10, 2008 - 1:32PM Source: ABC

The share market rout has hit hard in Asia, where the region's biggest exchange in Tokyo has fallen by 11 per cent.Dramatic falls on the Tokyo exchange echoed similar trends across the region. The benchmark Nikkei index fell sharply, losing 11.4 per cent of its value in early trading, before recovering slightly. Some of Japan's largest companies have suffered big share price falls, including car maker Toyota and electronics giant Canon, with expectations profits will be hit by a global economic slump. The collapse of a listed real estate trust has also rumbled the market, with one of Japan's largest banks down 10 per cent. The rapid falls have sparked a temporary suspension of trading in shares futures, because of the size of the market decline.

Brussels scolds EU states for resisting financial regulation
ELITSA VUCHEVA 09.10.2008 @ 17:52 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday (9 October) rejected accusations that Brussels has failed to act quickly to the ongoing global financial turmoil, saying it was in fact member states that showed reluctance to stronger regulatory integration at EU level.We all know that before this crisis, there was no chance of introducing more European regulation. Some of the most relevant member states in the economic and financial dimension would not ever have accepted it, Mr Barroso told a seminar organised by the Friends of Europe think-tank in Brussels.It would be completely unfair to say that the commission was the one resisting a more European approach in this area. On the contrary, the commission was asked not to do more by very relevant actors, he added, Reuters reports.Mr Barroso was responding to criticism coming from European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, who at the same forum accused the EU executive for failing to respond to MEPs' calls for action in the area.The commission chief insisted that even after the financial crisis intensified and started hitting European banks in September, EU states failed to sufficiently co-ordinate actions and added that they are still unable to agree on the necessity of putting in place EU-wide financial supervision.There is not yet an agreement about the need for a co-ordinated response, for instance, on a supervisory authority, Mr Barroso said.His statements come as EU finance ministers earlier this week agreed to raise the minimum guarantee for European savers' deposits from €20,000 to €50,000.They also said all concrete rescue actions should be decided at national level – although co-ordinated with other EU states and bodies.The financial crisis is set to be among the main topics on the agenda of EU leaders meeting in Brussels next week (15 – 16 October) as well.

Commission in action

On Wednesday, Mr Barroso said he found the moves of the bloc's member states encouraging, but added he was not yet satisfied.We can and we must do more when it comes to member states co-operation, he told MEPs gathered for a plenary session in Brussels.The commission president also announced he would set up a panel of experts, headed by former IMF director Jacques De Larosiere – also a former governor of the French central bank, to look into ways of improving banking rules and make cross-border transactions more secure.Additionally, Mr Barroso said he would himself chair a permanent committee on the financial crisis within the commission that would also include economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia, internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy, and competition commissioner Neelie Kroes.Next week, the EU executive will also propose a draft law regulating credit rating agencies, which analysts say deserve part of the blame for the financial crisis.

FARRAKHAN ON OBAMA - THE MESSIAH IS SPEAKING
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77539

WELL WE SEE THE HINDUS ARE JUST AS BAD AS ISLAM FOR MURDERING PEOPLE. WE SEE THE FRUIT OF THESE SO CALLED PEACEFUL RELIGIONS, HINDUISM AND ISLAM.

Holy war strikes India,35 Christians killed and 50,000 forced from their homes by Hindu mobs enraged at Swami's murder By Andrew Buncombe in Phulbani, Orissa Thursday, 9 October 2008 AP

As she recalled her awful story, Puspanjali Panda made no attempt to halt the tears flooding down her face. Holding her daughter close, she told how a baying Hindu mob dragged her husband – a Christian pastor – from his bed, beat him to death with stones and iron rods and then threw him into a river. She found his corpse two days later, washed up on the bank. When she went to the police, they told her to go away.

Mrs Panda and thousands of others like her are victims of the worst communal violence between Hindus and Christians that India has seen for decades. For a country that boasts of its mutual religious tolerance, the long-simmering tension that has erupted in the Kandhamal district of the state of Orissa – a nun being raped, churches being burned, at least 35 people killed and thousands forced from their villages – is both a belated wake-up call and a mounting embarrassment. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, called it a national disgrace.But for Mrs Panda, sheltering in a wretched relief camp in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, it is much worse than that. The 38-year-old said she had no idea what would now happen to her and her bewildered-looking child, Mona Lisa. I do not want to go back. They have destroyed my home, she wailed. The journey to the heart of the violence follows a bone-shaking road east from Bhubaneswar to the district capital, Phulbani. It was here in late August that thousands of Hindus armed with swords, sticks and primitive guns began taking matters into their own hands after the murder of an elderly religious leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. The swami, a senior member of a right-wing Hindu organisation known as the Vishswa Hindu Parishad (VHP), had reportedly been working to prevent low-caste Hindus converting to Christianity. His followers claimed he had been murdered by local Christians, though police said there was no evidence of that. Either way, in the days that followed, groups of Hindus wrought a terrible revenge on Christian families whom they had lived alongside for decades. In addition to the deaths, 140 churches and prayer halls were attacked and up to 50,000 people forced to flee. In instances the violence appears staggering in its cruelty. Rabindranath Pradhan, now a refugee, had to watch helplessly while a 300-strong mob doused his disabled brother with petrol and set him alight. He was shouting 'Help me, Help me.' I could not help – there were so many of them, he said.

Local people are now forced to fly saffron-coloured flags outside their homes to identity themselves as Hindus and prevent attack. In the village of Pabinga a Catholic church lies in ruins, the cross pushed from the roof and the interior of the building badly damaged. Christian leaders say that families forced to flee have been told they can only return if they re-convert to Hinduism. Raphael Cheenath, the Archbishop of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, traced the violence to the anger of upper-caste Hindus at the number of Dalits or so-called untouchables converting to Christianity. Previously, he said, the lower castes had lived the lives of slaves and now – liberated and better-educated – they represented a challenge. It incites the upper castes, he said. While conversion has been an issue, the conflict here is more complex than a religious disagreement. Many activists believe the fight is an economic dispute between two of India's poorest groups, complicated by the issue of caste and ethnicity. For decades there has been conflict over land and resources between the two groups at the bottom of India's complex social system – the indigenous people of the region officially listed as scheduled tribes (ST) and non-indigenous poor known as scheduled castes (SC). While the ST are Hindu, increasing numbers of SC have converted to Christianity to escape the misery of the caste system, for perceived economic benefit and because of the efforts of missionaries. Many politicians have accused right-wing Hindu groups of agitating tension for political reasons. Somewhat surprisingly given the number of churches that have been destroyed, the ST of Kandhamal also say their conflict with the SC communities is not a religious dispute. They too say the battle is over land and resources.

Lambahdhar Kanhari, a tribal leader, says he has received death-threats from Christians. At his house near Phulbani a guard with a pump-action shotgun stands outside. Mr Kanhari did not deny that tribal people were responsible for the flurry of attacks but said that while the recent violence had been triggered by the killing of Swami Saraswati, its roots went back decades. These SC came from outside the area. They are criminal by nature. They have taken our land, our crops, everything, he said. When the Swami was killed by the Christians some of his followers went after the killers and some of our people have been involved in the fighting.The authorities say 11 relief camps have been set up to help more than 23,000 people. The Indian government has belatedly dispatched hundreds of police and paramilitaries to Kandhamal to calm the situation. In Phulbani, there is now a 6pm-8am curfew. On a recent evening, the curfew had just been called as Asis Mishra was chaining shut the gate in front of his home. One of a tiny number of Christians in Phulbani still daring to live in their homes, Mr Mishra had good reason to take special safety precautions.During the worst of the violence his family had fled their home and lived in a guesthouse, provided with food and money by Hindu families. Mr Mishra explained that he was not a recent convert, his family having been Christians for five generations. He said he hoped the fact he was well known within the community would protect him. He tapped on his chest and said: We have been here a long time, but there is still some fear... It is always here.

Religious intolerance: The flashpoint state

* Orissa, on the Bay of Bengal, is India's ninth-largest state. It is less densely populated than its coastal neighbours but it is still home to 36 million people.

* Hindus make up 94 per cent of the population; 2 per cent are Christians. Tensions mounted in 1999, when an Australian missionary and his sons were burnt alive by a Hindu mob.

* The state has one-fifth of India's coal reserves and a third of its bauxite, but many people live in chronic poverty.

OZONE DEPLETION

ISAIAH 30:26-27
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:

MATTHEW 24:21-22,29
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened (Daylight hours shortened)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

REVELATION 16:7-9
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

MEPs endorse exploitation of Arctic resources
LEIGH PHILLIPS Today OCT 10,08 @ 09:28 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union must push for an international treaty governing the Arctic if the rapidly melting and delicate region is to be saved, the European Parliament urged in a resolution on Thursday (9 October) that received overwhelming cross-party support.The European Commission must begin to take a pro-active role in the Arctic - until recently a region largely ignored by the EU executive - reads the resolution, which was supported by 597 lawmakers, with 23 against and 41 abstentions.MEPs want the commission to win observer status in the Arctic Council - the international body of Arctic-bordering nations - and set up a dedicated Arctic Desk.In adopting the resolution, MEPs said they were concerned about the melting ice-cap and permafrost, rising sea levels and how the retreating ice is destroying animal habitats, not least of that of the polar bear.The chamber wants the commission to open international negotiations that would lead to the adoption of an international treaty for the protection of the Arctic. Currently, the Arctic is not governed by any specific international mechanism, as is the Antarctic under the 1993 Madrid Treaty.However, in a fudge that allowed both supporters of Arctic preservation and supporters of expanded resource extraction to support the same resolution, the chamber called on the commission to include proposals for joint working procedures for the EU and Arctic countries on both climate change and security of energy supply.

The parliament said it supports the Arctic Council in maintaining the high north as a zone of low tension, open to international research co-operation, but also to allow the full development of its potential as a future energy supplier region in a sustainable manner.Some 22 percent of the remaining undiscovered and recoverable resources left on the planet are to be found somewhere in the Arctic, including vast gas, oil and minerals, US scientists estimate.Additionally, while much of the world's fish stocks are in free-fall, those in the high north remain ripe for exploitation, believes the European Commission, which sent fisheries commissioner Joe Borg to the most recent meeting of the Nordic Council of Ministers in Ilulissat, Greenland in September.

Arctic gold rush

At the time, Mr Borg said: As the ice recedes, we are presented with a first-time opportunity to use transport routes such as the Northern Sea Route.This would translate into shorter transportation routes and greater trading possibilities, and will provide a better opportunity to draw upon the wealth of untapped natural resources in the Arctic.In mid-September, energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs declared: You cannot say [the Arctic] is a sanctuary ... otherwise, where will we get our energy from? at a Brussels debate with environmental group WWF. WWF has called the idea of drilling in the Arctic perverse, and wants a moratorium on any drilling and commercial exploitation of the region.The MEPs also said that they are concerned that the ongoing race for Arctic resources could lead to security threats for the EU.The sentiment echoes a joint EU member state-European-Commission report published in March that called on the EU to boost its civil and military capacities to respond to serious security risks, resulting from catastrophic climate change.The threat of an intensified scramble for resources in the Arctic as previously inaccessible regions open up was singled out for attention.

DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).

Lisbon signature is solemn promise, ex-commissioner says
ANDREW WILLIS 09.10.2008 @ 17:28 CET

EUOBSERVER / CORK - National governments should stand down if they fail to ratify EU treaties Viscount Etienne Davignon said Wednesday (8 October) while speaking at a European symposium in southern Ireland. Signing the treaty is the most solemn thing that states can do. It's a commitment to the other states. The ratification process is not at will, it is an obligation, said the former industry commissioner who served in Brussels from 1977 to 1984.I find it unacceptable that a government that has committed to other governments in good faith that it would carry this [ratification] out, why then is this the only case when a government does not resign [if it fails]? It is not acceptable.The Belgian politician and businessman was the guest of honour at the symposium held in University College Cork entitled Europe: International Power.The Irish government signed the Lisbon Treaty at a formal ceremony in Lisbon last year. But an Irish referendum in June returned a No vote, putting the future of the agreement in doubt.Mr Davignon's comments will place further pressure on Irish minister for foreign affairs Micheal Martin, who on Monday told the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee in Brussels that the Irish government would not be able to ratify the Lisbon Treaty before European parliamentary elections in June next year. As a result, only 736 MEPs can be elected to the chamber as laid out under the Nice Treaty instead of the 751 MEPs envisaged under Lisbon. This will reduce the national quota of MEPs in 12 member states, something that is likely to be highly unpopular. Mr Martin was also scheduled to speak at the Cork symposium yesterday but was unable to attend due to a cabinet meeting in Dublin, where ministers discussed Ireland's emergency budget which has been brought forward to next Tuesday. The minister is clearly anxious about Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty last June however, as evidenced by his speech which was read out in Cork by Dan Mulhall, head of the EU affairs section in the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs.

Illusion exposed

As the ratification process has continued in other member states, the illusion propagated by those who suggested that an Irish No would result in the entire treaty being subject to renegotiation as been exposed, said Mr Mulhall.For the first time in its history as a member of the union, Ireland risks finding itself at the wrong side of a 26 to 1 split within the union, and that is not where we belong, he continued.Mr Mulhall said Ireland's influence when negotiating the EU budget and the future of the Common Agricultural Policy would be reduced and that potential foreign investors may now be having some doubts.

No Croatian solution

Questioned by the EUobserver, Mr Mulhall said he did not imagine components of the Lisbon Treaty would be inserted into a Croatian accession treaty that could be signed as soon as next year.By the end of this year, it's likely that 26 countries could have signed up to the Lisbon Treaty. In that context I'm not sure that the idea of putting certain elements into the Croatian treaty would really be that attractive.A number of academics amongst others have suggested that this might be a possible method of salvaging certain components of the Lisbon Treaty.

No prolonged mandate for Barroso, MEPs warn
LUCIA KUBOSOVA 09.10.2008 @ 17:41 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - If the Lisbon Treaty is not in place by June 2009, member states should keep their word on slimming down the European Commission, centre-right MEPs have argued, warning that parliamentarians would be reluctant to support a prolonged mandate for the current team of commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Time is against us, Spanish conservative deputy Inigo Mendez de Vigo from the constitutional affairs committee in the European Parliament told journalists on Thursday (9 October), following this week's visit by the Irish foreign minister Micheal Martin in Brussels.Ireland was originally supposed to indicate what it wants to do about the Lisbon Treaty, a reform of the 27-strong Union that was rejected in June by Irish voters, to the heads of states and governments set to gather for a two-day summit on 15 October. But Mr Martin confirmed to MEPs on Monday (6 October) that Dublin needs time for comprehensive research and only by December does the country expect to be able... to outline the necessary steps to achieve our objective of continued full engagement in the Union.Mr de Vigo thinks, however, that it would be too late for the new institutional set-up to come into effect before the European elections in June, meaning that the pre-vote campaign would be again focused on the treaty rather than on other issues of concern for EU citizens.Moreover, it would mean that the bloc's assembly would be elected under the current Nice Treaty with a different distribution of seats - 736 instead of 751 MEPs with fewer seats for 12 member states - and less power than envisaged by the reform document. If that is the case, argued Mr de Vigo, the centre-right European People's Party (EPP-ED), the biggest parliamentary group in the 785-member legislature, would press for the rules on the composition of the EU executive also to be respected. Under the Nice Treaty, the European Council [heads of states and governments] will have to take a unanimous decision to reduce the number of commissioners. Are they ready to do that? the Spanish deputy asked rhetorically.The EPP will be against any prolongation of the mandate of the current commission. We will not accept having the Nice Treaty on the number of seats in the parliament, and the European Council not taking a decision on the reduction of the number of commissioners that is also in the Nice Treaty.Mr de Vigo hinted that some other political groups may follow suit in requiring this condition be maintained.But according to one commission official, it is widely expected in the EU executive that the national capitals will agree to keep 27 commissioners, one each per member state.

UK worries

Also present at the media briefing, a German conservative member of the constitutional committee, Elmar Brok, pointed out that the Lisbon Treaty is the last chance for Europe's major institutional reform to be adopted this decade.I believe that in the next ten years in Britain, no ratification is possible. Not anything with major changes. If we don't get this, we get nothing, Mr Brok declared.He referred to the strongly Eurosceptic positions of many in the UK's opposition Conservative party, which is expected to win the next elections in the country, due in September 2010 at the latest.If the Lisbon treaty is not ratified and on the table at the point we take office, then, of course, we would hold a referendum, the Conservative shadow foreign secretary William Hague was quoted as saying by British media last month.The reform treaty has so far been ratified by 23 member states, with German President Horst Kohler's spokesperson announcing on Wednesday (9 October) that he would give a final nod to the document after a thorough analysis with legal experts.Apart from final and unproblematic formalities expected in Poland and Sweden, the Czech Republic is the only country still waiting for the response of its constitutional court on whether the Lisbon Treaty is in line with the Czech charter. The two Conservative MEPs believe that once all other member states have ratified the reform treaty, it would be easier for Irish politicians to put it forward to the country's voters for another vote, possibly with clarifications on sensitive issues such as Ireland's neutrality or sovereignty over tax or family law decisions.

EU symbols

Separately, with the fate of the Lisbon Treaty still unclear, the European Parliament on Wednesday decided to officially recognise EU flag, anthem and motto as the symbols of the bloc's plenary.The flag, a circle of twelve golden stars on a blue background, will be now displayed in all parliament's meeting rooms and at official events. The anthem, based on the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, will be performed at the opening ceremony following each European election and at formal sittings.The motto, United in diversity, will be reproduced on all Parliament's official documents, and the celebration of Europe Day on 9 May will be also formally recognised, says a report approved by 503 votes in favour 96 against and 15 abstentions.The symbols were first officially referred to by the European Constitution, a document rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005 and replaced by the Lisbon Treaty, which does not mention them.

EUROPEAN UNION ARMY

DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)

DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.

DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.

REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)

Georgia should not become another Northern Cyprus, minister says
VALENTINA POP Today OCT 10,08 @ 18:04 CET

EUOBSERVER/TBILISI – Russian troops still remain in some parts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia previously controlled by the Georgian police, moves that will be brought up at the upcoming talks in Geneva, minister for re-integration Temuri Yakobashvili told the EUObserver on Friday (10 October).On the sunny streets of Tbilisi, bordered by impressive plane trees, life seems back to normal after the conflict. It looks normal, but it's not quite the same, a teenager says when asked about the daily life in the aftermath of the Russian war. The scars are still fresh and visible. Buses still carry English-speaking banners with Stop the Russian aggression on Georgia, while some bookshops have posters in their windows with the word F--- under Putin's image.Meanwhile, in Gori, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said at a press conference on Friday that Russian troops have partly withdrawn from the outposts outside the two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in line with the 10 October deadline contained within the ceasefire agreement, AFP and Reuters report.

The representative of the French EU presidency who brokered the agreement also stressed that the Russians need to withdraw to the positions they held prior to 7 August, including the Akhalgori district in South Ossetia, which used to be under Georgian control before the war.Russia should not be granted the feeling that they fulfilled their obligations, minister for re-integration Temuri Yakobashvili said in an interview with the EUObserver on Friday, ahead of a meeting with Mr Kouchner in Batumi.Apart from the Akhalgori district, which was never under control of the secessionists, Russians also occupied the Kodori corridor in Abkhazia and other parts previously under Georgian control, the minister said.We see now the attempts from Russia to fulfill their obligations by some percentage. This should not be tolerated and especially France should not give them a green light on that, Mr Yakobashvili said.Concerning the upcoming Geneva talks, the minister said: War criminals should not be invited to those kind of talks, referring to the political leadership of the two secessionist regions. Yet he agreed that there should be discussions with representatives of the communities from both sides. The status of the regions is not negotiable, Mr Yakobashvili said.These talks should not be dedicated to interpretations of the agreement, but to the occupation of Georgia, repatriation of refugees and creating durable security conditions for the stability of the Caucasus, he added.The EU observer mission in Georgia (EUMM) is a good start, according to the minister, though its mission should not be indefinite, but measured against benchmarks. We are not going to transform the current situation into a Northern Cyprus. Russia is an occupier and should be treated as such at an international level, he stressed.

Northern Cyprus declared its independence in 1983, nine years after a Greek Cypriot coup attempting to annex the island for Greece triggered an invasion by Turkey. The de facto independent republic has received diplomatic recognition only from Turkey, and the conflict has still not been resolved even with the rest of the island joining the EU in 2004.On the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Mr Yakobashvili stressed that Russia is the only country to have done so, while the Nicaraguan president only verbally did the same he noted, with no formal recognition being voted by the central American country's parliament.

Georgia at a crossroad

Speaking at the opening of the European Resource Bank, a gathering of free-market think tanks, on Thursday evening in Tbilisi, the 37-year-old Georgian prime minister, Lado Gurgenidze, talked of the dilemma Georgia faces today.Georgia is at a crossroads – if it continues as a young liberal democracy or turn into something fundamentally different, obviously less European, weighed down by its Soviet past, with its Euro-Atlantic aspirations crushed by brutal external force, he said.This is the dilemma we face today, Mr Gurgenidze added.With Russian-Georgian relations still in a deep diplomatic freeze, Mr Yakobashvili told the EUobserver that first contacts will be re-established at the Geneva talks next week. However, in the informal atmosphere of the European Resource Bank opening, Prime Minister Gurgenidze did have a brief chat with a former advisor to Vladimir Putin, Andrei Illarionov, now a staunch critic of his former boss.

MUSLIM NATIONS

EZEKIEL 38:1-12
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW)and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

ISAIAH 17:1
1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

EZEKIEL 39:1-8
1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal: (TUBOLSK)
2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts,(RUSSIA) and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands,( ARABS) and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
6 And I will send a fire on Magog,(NUCLEAR BOMB) and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.
8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.

JOEL 2:3,20,30-31
3 A fire(NUCLEAR BOMB) devoureth before them;(RUSSIA-ARABS) and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
20 But I will remove far off from you the northern army,(RUSSIA,MUSLIMS) and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.(SIBERIAN DESERT)
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.(NUCLEAR BOMB)
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

Russia only partly fulfils Georgia ceasefire: France By Margarita Antidze
OCT 10,08

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russia has not fully complied with the terms of a ceasefire in Georgia, France's foreign minister said on Friday, casting fresh doubt on whether frozen EU-Russia partnership talks will resume soon. Russian soldiers and tanks pushed into Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and adjacent buffer zones, as part of a massive counter-strike in August to crush an attempt by Georgian forces to retake South Ossetia.Moscow pulled out of the buffer zones this week, before an October 10 deadline set out in the French-brokered ceasefire. But Georgia says the Kremlin has not fully complied because Russian soldiers remain in the two separatist regions.Asked in the Georgian town of Gori, near South Ossetia, if Russia had honored the ceasefire deal, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters: I think so, but partly.This is not complete. This is not perfect. It's just the beginning. This is not the end, Kouchner, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said in a tent camp for Georgians displaced by the fighting.After a tour of the buffer zone vacated this week by Russian forces -- where human rights groups say hundreds of ethnic Georgian homes were wrecked after the ceasefire came into force -- Kouchner took a swipe at the Russian military.It's always very sad to see houses destroyed and people coming back and discovering their belongings in desperate state, said Kouchner, speaking in English. It was not a good march of the Russian army. Not at all.

EU DIFFERENCES

In a statement released in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana confirmed Russian forces had withdrawn from areas outside Abkhazia and South Ossetia.This withdrawal will, we hope, allow internally displaced people to return to their homes and contribute to the normalization of living conditions, he said.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said his country had done everything in its power to comply with the ceasefire. I believe in this respect everything is developing all right, he told reporters at a regional summit in Kyrgyzstan.EU foreign ministers could decide next week whether to restart talks on a strategic partnership treaty with Russia that the 27-member bloc has put on hold until it is satisfied Russia has complied with the ceasefire deal.Kouchner said he did not know if this would happen and pointed to differences among EU members. Some are not in agreement. There are people supporting Russia, and there are people fighting against Russia, he said.Kouchner and EU observers will present the findings of his trip at a meeting of foreign ministers on Monday which will prepare a possible decision two days later by European leaders to restart the talks.Moscow says it will keep a total of 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which it has recognized as independent states, to protect them from further Georgia aggression.The Kremlin said it was morally obliged to enter Georgia to prevent what it called a genocide by Georgian forces.Western states said its response was disproportionate, but analysts say the European Union's reaction has been tempered because Russia supplies a quarter of Europe's gas and is a major trade and investment partner.Diplomats in Brussels said some EU members, including Britain, Poland and the Baltic nations, favor waiting a while before resuming the partnership talks with Russia. Giving the green light is a very important moment in terms of the signal to Russia about how we feel about how things have ended up, said one EU diplomat.

Spacecraft moved to launch pad ahead of ISS flight By PETER LEONARD, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 10, 9:17 AM ET

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - Friends and family of the world's next space tourist — including his astronaut father — watched Friday as the rocket for the voyage was placed on a launch pad in Kazakhstan for its weekend takeoff to the International Space Station. The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft, mounted on a three-stage rocket, traveled at daybreak for 3 miles by railroad from an assembly hangar to the Baikonur launch area.On Sunday it blasts off with American software millionaire Richard Garriott on board. Garriott paid $30 million dollars to travel to the International Space Station, where he will spend about 10 days taking photographs and conducting a range of medical and physical experiments.Also on the flight will be U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.Launch preparations were going well, International Space Station Program deputy manager Kirk Shireman said Friday.

It has been very efficient and very quick. It's a system and a process that has worked tremendously successfully over the years, he said. We're looking forward to a successful launch on Sunday.The rocket's installation at the launch pad was watched by dozens of friends, colleagues and family members, including Garriott's father, Owen, a two-time space traveler who took extensive photographs of the Earth's surface during his stay on the U.S. orbital station Skylab in 1973.Garriott is a board member and investor in Space Adventures, Ltd., a U.S.-based company that has organized flights aboard Russian craft for five other millionaires including the first paying space tourist, California businessman Dennis Tito, in 2001.He plans to carry out experiments during his voyage, including one involving protein crystal growth, on behalf of companies that he says have footed a meaningful percentage of the bill.He has also said he would take photos to record how the Earth's surface has changed in the 35 years since his father's voyage.

The launch is scheduled for 3:01 a.m. EDT Sunday.

Garriott returns to Earth later this month with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Volkov, who has been at the space station since April.Volkov also has followed his father, a decorated cosmonaut from the Soviet era, in traveling to space. But Garriott was unable to do so as an astronaut due to poor eyesight.